The fluorescent lights of St. Maryam's Hospital hummed with an indifferent persistence that matched the cold London rain pelting against the windows. Jegar Redraynar stood in the corridor outside the VIP ward, his jacket still damp from the hurried journey across the city, watching shadows move behind the frosted glass door. He could hear muffled voices—his mother's, sharp and anxious; his aunts', layered with that particular concern wealthy people reserve for matters of inheritance and legacy; his uncle's deep baritone cutting through occasionally with what sounded like medical questions.
No one had called him directly. He'd found out through a text from his grandfather's nurse, Maria—a kind Portuguese woman in her fifties who'd always slipped him biscuits when he visited and actually remembered his birthday. "Your grandfather had an episode. Come if you can." That was all. No details from his parents, no frantic call from his mother, no curt message from his father's secretary. Just Maria, doing what his own family wouldn't.
The train ride from Cambridge had been agonizing. Jegar had left his afternoon lecture on European economic policy without explanation, his materials scattered across the desk, his classmates barely noticing his departure. He supposed that was fitting—being unnoticed was practically his family inheritance, the one thing the Redraynars had consistently given him.
Now he stood here, close enough to see his family through the translucent barrier, far enough to remain invisible. The pattern of his entire life, crystallized in this hospital corridor.
Through the glass, he could make out his mother, Victoria Redraynar née Ashworth—formerly Victoria Ashworth before she'd married into the Redraynar dynasty. Even in crisis, she maintained that rigid posture that spoke of private schools and deportment classes, her dark hair pulled back severely, her clothes immaculate despite the emergency. She stood closest to the door of his grandfather's room, her hand pressed against the frame as if holding herself up, or perhaps holding herself back from something.
That hand—Jegar had spent eighteen years trying to hold it, to feel it ruffle his hair with affection, to have it reach out to him first instead of always, always reaching toward anything and anyone else. His earliest memory was of being four years old, falling from a tree in the gardens of Ashworth Manor, scraping his knee badly enough that blood soaked through his small trousers. He'd run crying to his mother, who'd been taking tea on the terrace with her sisters. She'd looked at him with something between irritation and embarrassment, then called for the nanny. "Do handle him, please. He's making a scene." Those words had carved themselves into some tender part of his child's heart, and he'd spent the fourteen years since trying to prove he was worth more than being "handled."
His aunt Constance stood beside Victoria, nearly identical in bearing though ten years older. Constance had produced three children—two daughters and a son—all of whom excelled at everything they touched. Her son, Marcus, was only two years older than Jegar and already making waves in international finance. Marcus, who remembered Jegar existed exactly twice a year: at Christmas, when he'd give a perfunctory nod across the dinner table, and at the annual Redraynar Foundation Gala, when he'd mention him dismissively if anyone asked about "the other cousins."
Aunt Helena paced near the windows, her phone pressed to her ear. She was the youngest of his mother's siblings before Victoria, married to a German industrialist, always flying between London, Munich, and New York. Her children were grown now, settled in their own impressive careers, occasionally appearing in business journals and society pages. Jegar had served them wine once, during a family gathering at Ashworth Manor when he was sixteen. His aunt hadn't even glanced at him as he'd filled her glass. He'd been there to serve, as invisible as the staff, though he carried the same blood and supposedly the same name.
Then there was Uncle Richard—Richard Ashworth, the crown prince of the Ashworth empire, the one male heir of his generation who'd inherited not just wealth but his father's natural authority. Richard stood with his back to the corridor, hands clasped behind him, speaking with someone Jegar couldn't see—probably a doctor. Richard had sons of his own, twins, who were both at Oxford reading law and philosophy respectively, both destined for greatness, both everything Jegar had tried and failed to be.
His father wasn't here. Of course his father wasn't here. Alexander Redraynar was likely in Geneva or Singapore or São Paulo, managing the vast Redraynar financial empire. Jegar couldn't remember the last time his father had been somewhere his mother was, let alone somewhere Jegar himself might be. Their marriage was a corporate merger that had produced one disappointing product: him.
Jegar had learned early that his father's love—if it existed—was transactional. When he'd brought home top marks from primary school, his father had glanced at the report card and said, "Expected." When he'd won the mathematics competition in year eight, his father had been in Tokyo. When he'd been accepted to Cambridge, his father had been cc'd on the email but never responded directly. Every conversation they'd had in the past five years had been through intermediaries—secretaries, his mother when absolutely necessary, or curt text messages about trust fund distributions and "family obligations."
The one time Jegar had tried to talk to his father directly, to ask him about joining the family business, to show interest in the Redraynar legacy, his father had looked at him for perhaps five full seconds—the longest eye contact they'd ever maintained—and said, "You're not ready. Possibly not ever." Then he'd returned to his phone, and Jegar had ceased to exist again.
So Jegar had tried with his mother instead. Surely maternal love was different, more innate, less conditional. He'd tried being the perfect son—polite, accomplished, never troublesome, never demanding. He'd dressed the way she preferred, studied the subjects she valued, attended the social functions she deemed important. He'd sat through countless dinners at Ashworth Manor, watching her laugh with his cousins, ask them about their lives, their interests, their plans. He'd waited for his turn, for her eyes to find him, for her questions to come his way.
They rarely did.
"Jegar, you're slouching." "Jegar, must you always look so sullen?" "Jegar, why can't you be more like Marcus?" These were his mother's greatest hits, the sum total of her attention. She'd ask how his studies were going but never wait for the full answer. She'd inquire about his plans but immediately offer corrections before he could finish explaining. She didn't ask if he'd eaten, if he was lonely in Cambridge, if he ever needed anything beyond the generous allowance that appeared in his account each month—money as substitute for every other form of care.
The allowance was substantial enough that his university friends thought he was impossibly privileged, blessed beyond measure. They didn't understand that you could drown in money while starving for a single genuine conversation with your mother. They didn't know what it was like to sit at a dinner table with a dozen family members and feel more alone than if you were eating instant noodles by yourself in a cramped student flat.
His grandfather, though. His grandfather had been different.
Edmund Ashworth—patriarch of the Ashworth family, builder of empires, collector of art and rare books, lover of classical music and philosophical debate. He'd noticed Jegar. Not always, not even most of the time, but more than anyone else had. When Jegar was seven, his grandfather had found him hiding in the library at Ashworth Manor during a family party, reading a book far too advanced for his age because he'd wanted to impress someone, anyone.
Instead of sending him back to the children's area or dismissing him, Edmund had sat down in the leather chair across from him. "Dante," he'd said, noticing the book. "Ambitious choice for a young man. What circle of hell are you exploring?"
Jegar had been so startled by being addressed directly that he'd almost dropped the book. "The... the second one, sir. The lustful."
His grandfather had laughed—really laughed, not the polite chuckle adults used around boring children. "Not interested in the virtuous pagans or the gluttons? Straight to the juicy bits, eh?" Then he'd spent twenty minutes actually discussing the book with him, taking his seven-year-old observations seriously, treating him like a person whose thoughts mattered.
After that, Jegar had sought out his grandfather whenever possible. Edmund had been a busy man, his time divided between running Ashworth Industries and sitting on a dozen boards and advising governments, but he'd carved out spaces for Jegar. They'd had tea together sometimes, just the two of them in his grandfather's study. They'd discussed books, ideas, occasionally the family business. Edmund had asked real questions and listened to the answers. He'd criticized too—Edmund Ashworth didn't coddle—but his criticisms came with the expectation that Jegar could do better, that he was worth the effort of correction.
"Your mother loves you, you know," Edmund had told him once, when Jegar was fourteen and particularly raw from some thoughtless dismissal. "She's just... Victoria has her own wounds. My late wife and I—we were hard on her. Expected perfection. Perhaps that's where she learned it."
It wasn't an excuse, and Edmund hadn't offered it as one. Just context. An explanation that Jegar had turned over in his mind countless times since, trying to understand if knowing the reasons for his mother's coldness was supposed to make it hurt less. It didn't, but at least it suggested that her failure to love him properly wasn't entirely about his inadequacy. That was something.
But now his grandfather was in that room, behind that door, and Jegar still wasn't allowed to enter.
He checked his phone again. Nothing from his mother. Nothing from his father. Nothing from any of them. Just a new text from Maria: "He's asking for people. You should try to come in." Jegar wanted to laugh at the impossibility of it. He was here. He'd been here for twenty minutes, standing in this corridor like a ghost haunting his own family.
The door opened suddenly, and a doctor emerged—an older Indian man with kind eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. Uncle Richard followed him out, and the two spoke in low tones. Jegar caught fragments: "...stable for now..." "...another episode could be..." "...make him comfortable..."
Make him comfortable. The phrase landed in Jegar's stomach like ice. That was what doctors said when there was nothing left to do but wait.
His uncle finished speaking with the doctor and turned to head back into the room. This was Jegar's chance—his uncle would have to walk past him to get to the door. Richard Ashworth might acknowledge him, might even tell him what was happening. It was pathetic, this desperate hope for basic information about his own grandfather, but Jegar had learned to find sustenance in crumbs.
Richard walked past him without a glance, his attention already back on his phone, typing something urgent. Jegar might as well have been part of the wallpaper.
"Uncle Richard," Jegar said, his voice smaller than he'd intended.
Richard paused, hand on the door handle, and glanced back with mild surprise, as if a piece of furniture had suddenly spoken. "Oh. Jegar. Didn't realize you were here."
"I came as soon as I heard. How is he? Grandfather—how is he?"
"Stable. For now." Richard's tone was clipped, efficient, already dismissing him. "We're keeping it to immediate family at the moment. Best not to overwhelm him."
Immediate family. The words were a casual knife between the ribs. Jegar was Edmund's grandson, Victoria's son, but somehow these facts weren't enough to qualify him for the designation his uncle had just used.
"I'd just like to see him," Jegar pressed, hating the pleading note in his voice. "Just for a moment. I won't stay long—"
"Jegar." His mother's voice cut through from behind Richard, sharp with that particular tone that had disciplined him throughout childhood. She appeared in the doorway, her face composed but her eyes hard. "This isn't the time. Your grandfather needs rest, not a parade of visitors."
"I'm not a parade, I'm his grandson—"
"Don't be difficult." She was already turning away, back to the important people in the room. "Go back to university. Someone will call you if there's news."
Someone will call you. Not 'I'll call you.' Not 'we'll keep you informed.' Someone. Some anonymous functionary of the family apparatus, delivering updates to the peripheral relative who couldn't be trusted with real-time information.
Richard had already gone back inside. His mother lingered for just a moment more, and Jegar thought—hoped—she might say something else. Something softer. Maybe even ask if he was alright, if the journey had been difficult, if he needed anything.
Instead, she said, "You really should have worn a better jacket. You look disheveled." Then she closed the door.
Jegar stood there, staring at the frosted glass that separated him from his family, feeling the familiar weight settle over him. It was the weight of being perpetually unnoticed, perpetually insufficient, perpetually other despite sharing blood and name with the people inside that room. It was the weight of trying for eighteen years to earn love that apparently had to be earned, and failing every test whose criteria no one would explain to him.
He could leave. He probably should leave. Take the train back to Cambridge, return to his studies, his small flat, his life as a Redraynar in name but not in practice. Wait for the call that might come if his grandfather worsened. Or might not come until everything was already over.
But Maria had said his grandfather was asking for people. Not him specifically, perhaps, but people. And Edmund was the one person in this entire family who'd ever made Jegar feel like he wasn't a mistake, wasn't a disappointment, wasn't invisible.
So Jegar stayed in the corridor, standing watch over a family that didn't acknowledge his presence, waiting for a chance to say goodbye to the only person who'd ever really said hello.
The rain continued outside, London continuing its grey business, indifferent to the small tragedies of even the richest families. Inside the VIP ward, the Redraynars and Ashworths made their plans and had their important conversations. And in the corridor between these two worlds, Jegar Redraynar waited, as he'd always waited, hoping that this time—just this once—someone might remember he was there.